Month: July 2013

On Tuesday Sym and I (and Gwen!) went to Yokoyaya and stocked up on stickers, candy and about a thousand sheets of origami paper for a new project I’m dreaming up.

Refusing to sleep in her stroller.

I put up some shelves in my office.

Sym and I went with Jenn to Ikea.
I bought some things I needed for work, as well as new dishes. I recently gotten bored with having all colourful dishes so I decided to switch to white ones (with some pink and red thrown in).

This morning I had an appointment with the endocrinologist, and guess what: my thyroid levels are looking good! Hooray for that. I don’t have to get tested again for six weeks.

Hanging with Totoro.

I spent the rest of today unpacking and washing and organizing all the things I bought and brought in from storage.All filled with toys and ready for the kids!

I still have some weird guilt about going back to work early, even though I’m not “going” anywhere. But with Sym I was able to take three years off to spend with just her, so it feels weird that I’ll be having other kids here when Gwen is only nine months old. I hope everything goes alright :/

If you follow me on instagram then you already know that just going short was not the end of my ~hair journey~, and I spent most of Saturday going from almost black to basically blonde.I’ve worn that striped tee everySaturday since I bought it.

It’s still more gold than I’d like, but there are limits to human endurance when it comes to peroxide, so CLOSE ENOUGH. I did not get this done at the salon because I’m a) broke, and b) reasonably confident in my bleaching abilities, and anyway my hair is short as hell right now so who cares what happens to it. I don’t recommend you doing this yourself though; too much can go wrong (breakage, hot roots, and the heartbreak of nuclear sunset orange hair) and I don’t want to be responsible for that. When considering a big hair change always consult a professional! Do as I say, not as a do, I guess.

I actually have a little bit of hot roots going on myself, which was inevitable. In case you don’t know, “hot roots” is when you colour your hair and the root area ends up lighter/brighter/more intense than the ends. This can be caused by your body heat causing the dye or bleach to process faster the closer it is to your scalp (ya hothead), or in my case, because of the various layers of dye on my hair requiring more time & bleach to lift. My roots are a bit lighter/less gold than my ends, but I can’t bleach it again because I’m basically going to die from dye. I’m going to embrace it instead; in certain dogs (like pomeranians) this kind of two-tone colouration of the hair shaft is called “sable,” doesn’t that sound better? Of course it does. So let’s call it gold sable.

I feel like I have become myself circa 1995-2001, a time period when I shaved my head every time I had a bad hair day and was in a constant cycle of black to blonde to black. Sometimes I’d throw some unnatural colour in there, or try to go red (a colour which in no way suits me) but most of my time was spent vacillating between the two extremes of the hair colour spectrum. One time in order to achieve my goal of going from the bluest black to the whitest blonde I bleached my hair eleven times in one week, which I DEFINITELY do not recommend unless you are keen on having chemical burns all over your scalp.

Anyway, here’s hoping I can keep it together and resist going dark again. The whole point of cutting all my hair off was so I could grow it out my natural colour and not have to worry about roots anymore, hot or otherwise.

UPDATE: Since writing this post I’ve managed to tone out the gold. My hair is now a lighter version of what I think my natural colour is (other than white/grey), which means it should be easy to grow out.

Friday
After my hair appointment we took Gwen for lunch at the Cactus Club on English Bay. Bonus points for the super helpful staff (they’ll store your stroller for you while you eat!), demerits for the woman in the booth across from me who took off her sneakers and put her feet up on the bench so whenever I turned to look at Gwen all I saw was gnarly feet. Like, I’m not one of those “EW EW FEET R SO GROSS” people, but like… don’t take your shoes off in a restaurant.

In the afternoon I had to go get my blood drawn to test my thyroid hormone levels. I was able to go to the lab inside the hospital and man, I wish I could go there every time I had to get bloodwork done. It’s so much faster/less busy than the other labs around here.

In the evening we watched The Host, by which I mean the film based on the Stephenie Meyer book, not the Korean monster movie. The latter is excellent; the former is the most BORING movie I’ve seen since Quantum of Solace. It was basically two hours of people being broody and sullen in caves. YAWN. Even drinking most of a bottle of pink champagne didn’t make it bearable. The only good line in the whole movie: “Kiss me like you want to get slapped!”

Saturday
In the morning we skipped the farmer’s market and I spent most of the day on a project I’ll be discussing tomorrow. We also skipped the fireworks since we didn’t want to mess with Gwen’s bedtime. Last weekend she was fine when we kept her out late and fine the following day, but for the rest of the week we had a lot of trouble getting her to bed. Instead we stayed in and played Ascension for the first time in what feels like months. Tragically I lost T___T

I had a very thyroidy night; I was really jittery and sensitive and SO HUNGRY. We had dinner early (pasta) and less than two hours later I was almost in tears because I was so starving! I forced Taylor to go to the store to get me potato wedges, and while he was gone I remembered we had hotdogs so I made those and while they were cooking I ate a bunch of cheese. It was crazy! I had three hot dogs and almost a pound of potatoes, I couldn’t believe it.

Sunday
Sunday was for errands and projects. I rearranged the storage room and brought in a few things I’ll need for work. I photographed and listed some new bannersets on etsy, and picked up supplies to make more, as well as some suede for new baby shoes. I sorted out some plush toys, repainted the top of Taylor’s old desk so I can sell it (anybody want a desk?), and recovered a beanbag chair.
It used to be pink and stained; now it’s red with white polka dots. Usually I sew everything by hand but I knew it would take me fifty million years to finish it that way so I finally unboxed the sewing machine I bought in JANUARY and gave it a try. The result is… serviceable. I mean if I’d used an actual pattern and ironed the seams and pinned it properly it probably would have turned out better, but considering I barely know how to wind a bobbin I think it’s alright.

Last weekend as I was retouching my roots I was like… THIS IS THE WORST, I NEED TO GO BACK TO MY NATURAL COLOUR. Last time I tried doing it by highlighting it blonder and blonder so I didn’t have to lose all the length, this time I said FUCK IT. I’m going to have to bleach it to get rid of all the dark ends, but at least it won’t be such a production.
All my cut off hair, my stylist’s crabby old chihuahua for scale.

New sets of heart garlands are available in the shop. I have some pink/red hearts and green/turquoise stars that will be up later as well!

Excellent round up of tree swings. We had two at my parent’s house growing up- one in the backyard and one in the bottom garden by the stream (that’s right, my childhood was hella idyllic) and if I ever move out of this godforsaken basement apartment into a house with a yard I don’t have to share I am DEFINITELY getting a tree swing.

1. LA-Z Girl bag from American Apparel. I’ve had this bag for years and only use it in the summer. My only complaint is I wish it had two pockets (one for phone and one for keys), but otherwise I like it. Although seeing the stock picture I’m kind of repulsed at how discoloured mine is. Guess I’ll be doing laundry tonight!
2. phone, HTC One
3. Envirosax reusable shopping bag, always important!
4. keys on a moon & sun keyring from Cutpath
5. Evian Spray, what of it??? I’d pretend that I’ve only started using this since I developed this overheated sweatiness disease, but lbr, I’ve been hooked since I was 17.
6. camera, a Canon S90, represented here by my camera case. This case came with my ex’s first-ever digital camera in 2000.
7. wallet, I’m fancy so it’s Balenciaga, but I’m also broke these days so there’s nothing in it but a maxed-out credit card and three dollars in change.
8. Vandring burp cloth from Ikea. These cloths are great for wiping up baby messes, or clipping to the stroller as a sun shade. Everyone else in the world uses those Aiden & Anais swaddling blankets for that, but they’re so big that they’re always flapping in the breeze. The Ikea cloths are a much better size, plus they’re $5 for 2. SOLD!
9. zipper pouch from Jimmy K. Designs, holding a) Peppa doll, b) Haba Zwergi rattle, and c) Boon Snack Ball full of Cheerios.
Usually when I go out these days “my” bag is actually the baby’s diaper bag and it’s full of her things with my wallet, phone and keys crammed in a tiny pocket. If we’re just out running a quick errand though, I’ll just throw a few baby essentials into a pouch. Depending on what needs Gwen will have while we’re out, I’ll bring a few toys and a snack, or one diaper & wipes, or a bottle and bib.

It’s Wednesday. You know what that means: I’m gonna make you girls a hump day treat! Or rather… show you how so you can make one yourselves.literally me

A few months ago I was at Ikea and I decided to buy some of the lingonberry drink concentrate they sell. You can mix it with water or club soda to make juice or pop, but I figured why not mix it with alcohol? I choose Absolut vodka for this recipe for Swedish authenticity, but if you don’t care about authenticity you could use non-Swedish vodka.

instructions
In a Sommarfint glass (or rocks glass, whatever), pour the vodka and orange juice over ice and stir. Slowly pour the lingonberry syrup so it settles at the bottom of the glass. I actually had some trouble with this (ie I spilled it everywhere) so I created a “sunrising” tool by putting a small funnel into a bubble tea straw, but maybe you’ll have better luck than me. Garnish with an orange slice and enjoy while kicking back on your Klippan sofa to celebrate successfully assembling your Expedit shelving unit. Just try not to spill it on your Lack coffee table because you know liquid will warp the heck out of that thing. Skål!

This baby is going places. She no longer scootches around without reason, now she sets her sights on a goal and goes for it, and more often than not, achieves it! Here she was considering chasing the cat but then decided she’d come to me (as did Georgie).
She’s fast, too. Turn your back on her for a second and she’s under your desk, or halfway down the hall, or headed for the front door. Fast, so fast her little knees are all scuffed up and rug burned.

It’s interesting to me the different orders in which different babies develop new skills. On Friday one of my old clients brought her daughter, who is a couple weeks older than Gwen, over for a play date (ie babies grabbing each other’s feet and faces). Her daughter had much better hand-eye coordination than Gwen. She could manipulate toys better than Gwen can, and hold her own bottle to drink from, something Gwen can’t/won’t do at all. But once her mom sat her down on the floor, she stayed sitting in that one spot. When I sit Gwen down, she’ll stay there for a while before rolling into her belly-crawl position and taking off for points unknown. She’s got places to be, this baby.

Friday
Gwen has started really exploring her environment- on Friday afternoon she crawled from the living room across the dining room and down the hallway to the bedroom where Taylor was sleeping. I was trying to cook some taco fixins so eventually I had to trap her in her high chair.

Saturday
We started the day with a trip to the farmer’s market for berries, then I made pancakes and a pie. In the afternoon I went over to Jenn’s to help her set up all the decorations I made. I’m really happy with how they all turned out, although the photo backdrop ended up being too small. In the evening Taylor, Gwen and I all went to the party. She made tons of amazing food: mini veggie dogs with homemade ketchup, corn, mac & cheese, and of course s’more d’oeuvres. Gwen was a total champ; he regular bedtime nowadays is 7:30, which is basically when we left the house. She had a quick disco nap in her stroller and then was wide awake and non-fussy the entire time we were there.

Sunday
We thought Gwen might sleep in the next morning but that wasn’t the case and at 8:30 she was ready to go. We decided to have a low-key day and hung around the house until after her nap when we went out to run a couple errands. Taylor went to bed when we got home and Gwen and I spent the afternoon & evening hanging out.

Now it’s time for me to get back to work- I spent most of last week making the party decorations/doing sweet f.a. so now I have lots of etsy orders to catch up on. Once more into the breach, igss.